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Thursday’s Special: Fall

Yesterday, my hubby and I had a meeting to go to in Wheaton, a western suburb of Chicago, so beforehand we decided to take a walk at Danada Forest Preserve in Wheaton. The forest preserve is part of the county’s larger forest preserve system with hiking/biking trails.

Danada Equestrian Center offers lessons, camps, group tours and recreation year round. In the fall, they offer horse-drawn hayrides.

Partial view of the horse farm

From this view, you can see the barn in the distance.

Danada House is a facility of the DuPage County Forest Preserve and outside is a beautiful venue popular for weddings. In fact, a couple of our friends got married there three years ago, also in October, so some of the pictures in this post were taken in 2014, which had a much more colorful autumn than this year.

Danada House courtyard garden

The arch under which the bride & groom will stand to take their vows

In 2015, this topiary was added to commemorate Debonair, the horse that won the Kentucky Derby that year. A plaque tells us that Debonair was raised at Danada.

It was such a beautiful day yesterday for a walk in the woods!

We came to a map that showed the trails that go through the property. One led to Herrick Lake, and another led to Rice Lake. We decided to walk toward Rice Lake, a shorter walk and we didn’t want to get lost!

If we had continued walking, we would have reached the end of the trail, arriving at a major street. Instead, we turned around and headed back.

The site is open year round. To find out more about Danada, go to their web site here.